The Moto X display exhibits the best power efficiency and beats Apple's iPhone 5S, according to two recent research notes from ABI Research.

One, released Tuesday, trumpeted the display, supplementing a note released last week.

"After Google acquired Motorola, we now have the first Google-influenced phone with some very innovative engineering," Jim Mielke, VP of engineering at ABI Research, said in a phone interview.

Today's note said that the Moto X may be leading the way toward displays that don't have to constantly dim to save power.

The display found in the Moto X...has the best performance observed in a mobile display to date...[the] AMOLED display draws just 92mA [milliamps] during bright conditions and 68mA while dim.
This level of performance is so significantly improved that other factors are more likely to govern battery life now. Automatic dimming and short idle periods before turning off the display will be less crucial and may even be features that fade away from all handsets soon.

By comparison, the iPhone 5s draws 80mA and 220mA (about 2.5 times as much as the Moto X) while sporting 20 percent fewer pixels than the Moto X, he said.

The power consumption on Moto X's always-on voice commands is also impressive, Mielke said.

"Features like always-on voice commands typically would draw too much current to be practical, but the Moto X accomplishes the task with 4.5mA allowing the phone to maintain over 200hrs of standby time," he said in a statement released last week.

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The Moto X's engineering has bypassed Apple's in some respects, Mielke said.

"The transition in innovation and solid engineering is clear [to the Moto X and away from the iPhone]," he said in the interview, adding that the 5S' fingerprint ID access lock was first introduced a few years back by Motorola on the Atrix HD 4G.

And Apple's new A7 chip -- which has been well-received -- has its own shortcomings: it draws more power during certain operations compared with its predecessor, the A6.

"The A7 processor drew 1100mA during fixed point operations and 520mA during floating point operations. The iPhone 5 drew 485mA and 320mA for the same test," he said.

He concludes his written comments with a zinger. "The combination of solid engineering, creative features, and timely introduction of those features was Apple's trademark but it has faded in this category over the last two years."

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About the author

Brooke Crothers writes about mobile computer systems, including laptops, tablets, smartphones: how they define the computing experience and the hardware that makes them tick. He has served as an editor at large at CNET News and a contributing reporter to The New York Times' Bits and Technology sections. His interest in things small began when living in Tokyo in a very small apartment for a very long time.
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